


No Need to Speak

by hilaryfaye



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:06:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilaryfaye/pseuds/hilaryfaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing that frightens Pitch more than the fact that he needs them is the thought that, one day, they might not come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pitch

In the end it’s only that Pitch wanted to be touched. To be caressed, and held, and to know that he wasn’t repulsive. 

Everyone has someone to be held by. Parents hold their children, lovers hold each other, even a friend could be called upon to offer a hug or a shoulder to lean on. 

Pitch had none of that. 

It ached on his skin like a hunger. He longed for that contact, just a few moments of someone else touching his hand, leaning close to him. Pitch hated to think of it, this desire that overwhelmed him with its strength. It was weakness, he was sure, and he tried to beat it out of himself, sleeping on the cold stone of his cavern, insisting in his own mind that he didn’t need it, not really.

But when the closest contact with another person he ever got was when he didn’t step out of the way just fast enough, Pitch could feel that ache again. 

He wanted to lose himself in someone else’s arms, bury his face against them and shut out the world, if only for long enough to draw a breath and be reminded that he more than a shadow. 

The first time Jack touched him, Pitch jerked away as if he’d been burned. It had only been the brushing of fingertips across the back of his hand, but it was startling nonetheless. 

It had been so long--far too long--since anyone had made that contact. Jack had looked just as stunned, to see Pitch pull his hand to his chest like a broken wing. It was Sandy who quietly pulled Pitch’s hand back, tracing each of his long fingers and then tenderly pressing his tiny hand into the palm. Pitch instinctively curled his fingers around Sandy’s hand, and the little man had smiled.

They were careful with him, as if he might break. At times, Pitch resented them for it--what did they think he was, a delicate flower? But the moment they began to push a boundary, he was more than grateful of their caution. 

Jack was fond of kisses. He pressed them lightly against Pitch’s palms, and then his wrists. He smiled when Pitch cupped his hand against Jack’s cheek, and ran his fingers back through the winter spirit’s messy hair. 

Sandy was more about caresses, ribbons of dreamsand curling up Pitch’s arm and whispering across his back. They were feathery touches, enough to sate the ache for a moment and then bring it back, deeper than before. 

Being able to hug them was something close to a miracle for Pitch, though he never would have admitted aloud. He pulled them close, pressing his face into their hair so that they couldn’t see the expression on his face, the ache burrowing through his heart. Jack seemed to understand, because his hugs were just as tight.

They helped, more than Pitch could ever have imagined--having someone’s arms around you, as tight as they would go. He had to bite his tongue to keep from making a sound when Jack said, “I promise I won’t let go.”

He clutches at Jacks skinny, bony frame--or sometimes Sandy’s more pillowy one--trying to fill his loneliness with them, trying to crush away the ache.

Sometimes though, Pitch can’t bear to have them touch him. He can’t bear their well meaning hands or lips, thinking that nothing lasts, everything will be taken away. In the morning they’ll come to their senses, remember everything he’s done and everything he is, and he’ll be alone again. It can’t possibly last, not with what they are and what he is. 

But even when he pushes them away they don’t leave, not really. They give him a few hours, a day or two at most, and then they’re back, reaching out like they’re not quite sure how they’ll be received.

Sandy’s the patient one, of course. It’s hard to make him angry (irritated, another matter, and completely different from real anger) and yet when Pitch does anger him, he knows. It’s as though a dam breaks and all of Sandy’s anger pours forth. 

Jack’s like setting a match to paper--he’s quick to fly off in a huff but it’s impossible for him to hold a grudge. It comes, Pitch thinks, from being a seasonal spirit. No bad mood ever really lasts for Jack. It’s that inconsistency that worries Pitch, that makes him distance himself from Jack because he’s afraid that one day Jack won’t come back. 

Even when he snaps at Jack, though, or pushes him away, the little rat comes back. Pitch will be dozing with Sandy, lulled into a sort of stupor by the little Guardian’s dreamsand and warmth, when he’ll be jolted awake by Frost’s icy feet against his legs. The boy even has the gall to grin at him when he does that. “Like a lovesick puppy,” Pitch muttered once, letting Jack snuggle against his chest, even though Frost’s breath made his skin prickle with goosebumps. 

Pitch knows he’s come to depend on them, and that frightens him... but he begins to trust, little by little, that they aren’t really leaving. That Sandy’s patience and Jack’s stubbornness are more than he realized, and that maybe, just maybe, Pitch can have that contact he’s spent so long hungering for.

 


	2. Sandy

Sanderson isn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. It was Jack who guessed it, and brought Sandy along with him. Sanderson’s puzzled over that connection that Jack and Pitch have before--they understand something about each other, something about loneliness and the misery it brings. 

They seem as different as night and day but something draws them together. And Sandy has always had his own connection to Pitch, a connection that only became more obvious when Pitch began experimenting with the dreamsand. 

What runs between Sandy and Pitch is an undercurrent, a strong tie that is not so readily obvious on the surface. With Jack and Pitch, though, it’s a reaction, nearly an explosion. They react off each other like a spark to gunpowder. 

Jack is usually the spark. Pitch goes through volatile days, lashing out at everyone and trusting no one. Of course they frustrate Sandy, but they affect Jack the most. Jack will fly into a rage and storm off, then he sulks. It’s Sandy who has to calm him down most of the time, but there are days when he makes Pitch go to apologize. 

Pitch is awful at apologies, of course, but he does his best. He does his best because he’s frightened of losing either Jack or Sandy, and truth be told it’s that that reassures Sanderson they’re doing the right thing. 

Pitch needs them, and he knows he needs them. He pushes himself for them. 

He confides in Sandy things he has a hard time saying to anyone else. Perhaps it’s because Sandy can’t talk, and wouldn’t even if he could, but it’s like pulling teeth sometimes to get Pitch to talk with Jack. Sandy’s no fool--they need this balance, and whether he wants to admit it or not, Pitch needs Jack to understand him. 

But perhaps, Sandy thinks, Pitch likes that Sandy doesn’t ask many questions. He rests his head almost like Sandy’s a pillow, murmuring about the nightmares he suffers--the ones that will bring Jack running when he screams. He talks about Jack--the frustrations and their arguments. He tells Sandy how he doesn’t want to lose them, but this all seems too good to be true. At any moment, the other shoe will drop, and he’ll wake up and realize he dreamed it all, or that they were only there to mock him. 

Sandy runs his fingers through Pitch’s hair, not asking why Pitch worries about these things, because he knows. Pitch has spent centuries alone. A few months is not nearly enough to assure him that he’s cared for.

Pitch sighs, closing his eyes. That’s the biggest expression of trust he can give--that he’s willing to let his guard down around Sandy and Jack. He’s willing to close his eyes, even sleep. He trusts them enough for that. 

Sandy presses a quick kiss into Pitch’s hair, and the silvery gold eyes fly open again, looking up at him. He’s always stunned, when they do something like that. He doesn’t understand how anyone could want to kiss him, or hold him. He rests his head against Sandy’s lap again, curling in on himself. “I feel so tired.”

That would be his most recent defeat. The Guardians didn’t generally need rest, but Pitch had taken quite a blow. He didn’t have belief fueling him, the way Sandy and Jack did. 

Sandy waited until Pitch was asleep to go looking for Jack. Sometimes Jack simply couldn’t sit still. He was too restless to spend too much time cooped up in the cavern. He was gracing a city with an early autumn frost, leaping into the breeze when Sandy found him. “What is it?” Jack asked, detecting the vague lines of worry on Sandy’s face. 

The dreamsand swirled above Sandy’s head, taking the image of Pitch. Jack crouched, clutching his staff. “Sandy?”

Sandy made a weary gesture and smiled, mussing Jack’s hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Don’t worry about it.

Jack grinned and rubbed noses with Sandy, leaping again into the wind. Sandy watched him go, whooping as he flew to some new place for some early autumn chill. 

Sandy sent a few dreamsand butterflies back to keep Pitch company, a sort of “sorry, had to go” note. It was night somewhere in the world, and Sanderson Mansnoozie had work to do.

Sandy had underestimated the comfort of having someone sleeping next to you. For a long time, he hadn’t quite seen the point. Surely if your dreams were good, it didn’t matter one way or another?

But he hadn’t counted on how nice it was, when you woke in the middle of the night, to have someone to reach for.

Or to be the person who was reached for. Often as not, Sandy woke when Jack snuggled closer, or when Pitch reached to pull him near. It was a warm feeling, to know that you were needed.

Or maybe not needed... but wanted.

 


	3. Jack

Jack gets back before Sandy does. He doesn’t really think of this place as “home,” more just the place where he’s most likely to find Pitch.

And find Pitch he does, sitting in the curve of a continent in his hollow globe, nursing a headache. He seems to have a lot of them these days, since Burgess. That’s how Jack thinks of it--as if Burgess were an event rather than a place. Sometimes he’s not so sure it isn’t.

Pitch glances at Jack as he settles next to Pitch, perched just at the edge. “Hello, brat.” He manages to smile a bit, though, so Jack knows he’s in a relatively good mood. Jack leans against Pitch’s shoulder, and hides his pleased smile as best he can when Pitch puts his arm loosely around Jack’s shoulders. 

Though Pitch’s hands are cool the rest of him is surprisingly warm. Jack had always imagined that Pitch would be cold, like him. Instead, the fastest way to get Pitch nearly leaping from bed is for Jack suddenly press a hand to the small of his back in the middle of the night. Pitch has nearly slapped him for that at least a dozen times.

Nearly. Jack generally dances just out of reach, laughing. Sandy always scolds him for that, but mostly because the whole debacle wakes him up. 

“You okay?” Jack asks.

Pitch rests his chin in Jack’s hair, and doesn’t answer at first. That’s a good sign--the faster he snaps out an impatient “fine” the less true it is. “Remarkably,” Pitch says in a low voice, “I just might be okay.”

Jack smiles, tucking his head against Pitch’s chest. Pitch pulls him just a little closer, a little jealously. Sandy will be back soon enough, but for now Jack has all of Pitch’s attention.

Well, the headache still has some of it.

“And you, brat?” Another good sign. 

Jack twirls his staff in his hand, thinking about the snow he brought to a few mountain ranges today. “Yeah, pretty good.”

Pitch grumbles and massages his temples, grimacing at the headache. Jack wishes there was something he could do, but for the moment he just wraps his arm around Pitch, wanting to hug the misery out of him. He knows better than anyone what that misery feels like.

By the time Sandy gets back, there’s something of a tower of ice and black sand in the middle of the cavern. Pitch seems to be feeling better, and neither he nor Jack is short of energy to be expended in creating something that proves to be more of an obstacle than they expected. Jack is skating around it with much more ease than Pitch, however, who’s focusing the majority of his energy on not falling down. 

Jack skirts up the side and catches Sandy around the middle, startling him. “Hey, Sandy, what took ya so long?” He grins, hanging on to this ice tower with one arm, and Sandy with the other.

Sandy smiles and shakes his head, pushing Jack’s arm away and gliding down to catch Pitch before he falls on his face. Sandy pulls Pitch over to a non-icy patch of floor, and Pitch turns to assess the tower. He seems pleased about it. Jack’s still antsy though, and night’s on it’s way. Pitch is in a good mood, he’ll want to go out, won’t he?

And thank the stars, he does. Jack and Sandy are out into the sky, and Pitch is flickering through the shadows, sending a few unwaries running home where it’s safe and the lights are on. Jack watches him whisper stories about the monsters hiding in the alleys and the darkened streets, keeping those kids shivering in their bed. 

To others, he whispers to them to lock their door at night. Pitch has just as much a role in protecting children as any of the Guardians do, whether he realizes it or not. Fear can be a useful thing. 

Jack drops down on a rooftop, tossing his staff from one hand to the other. “Bet you can’t catch me,” he tells Pitch. 

Pitch smirks, and doesn’t even glance at him. “I don’t have to.”

A ribbon of dreamsand twists around his ankle and Sandy has Jack upside down. Jack yelps, dangling in the air, and Sandy just giggles to himself. 

Jack freed himself and laughed, jumping back into the wind. He felt good. Better than he had in all the three hundred years previous. 

No matter how far he wandered, how long he was away, he always had a place to come back to now. 

Jack skirted along a few mountains that night, bringing early snowfall and a few overnight frosts to the last of the gardens. When dawn caught up with him he called up the wind again, and it brought him home. 

Pitch was still awake, but Sandy was sleeping curled up against his chest, like a cat. Jack leans his staff against the wall--this is the only place where he ever leaves his staff unattended, even for a moment. 

Pitch glanced at him, shifting so that Jack had room to curl up next to his side. Jack would have liked nothing better than to have ended up sleeping in a tangle heap, though that wouldn’t stop Pitch’s comments about his being a puppy. He tucked his head against Pitch’s shoulder. Pitch curled his arm around Jack’s shoulders, resting his cheek against Jack’s hair. 

It was strange with Pitch, sometimes. One moment he wanted nothing to do with them and he most certainly didn’t want to be touched--the next it was like he couldn’t imagine any life without them just an arm’s reach away. Was that what being in the shadows for so long did to you? Jack didn’t like to think about it.

“Pitch?”

“Shh,” Pitch said. “It’s such a lovely morning, there’s no need to ruin it by squawking like a blue jay.”

“I do not squawk,” Jack muttered, but he smiled. Sandy shifted in his sleep and sighed, a little puff of dreamsand making Jack drowsy. Jack grumbled about it a little bit, but settled down.

A nap wouldn’t hurt him. 

“Pitch?”

“What is it?”

“I want to kiss you.” Jack snuggled as close as he could.

“Go to sleep, brat,” Pitch murmured. “There’s no need to say anything.”


End file.
